At last all had passed by, and the only sound to be heard was the distant rumbling of the heavy-laden wagon-wheels down the hilly lane, or could it be the roll of distant thunder? for as he peeped over the edges of the hole he saw that the sun was setting in a bank of nearly black clouds. When he thought, that he was quite safe from being seen he scrambled up to the top of the hole, and a strange sight he looked, for his velvet breeches and his shirt and his face and hands were all one grimy drab color with the cobwebby dust and dirt he had gone through. Really, if anybody had spied him, there would have been no small difficulty in recognizing the little Prince who always went so richly and tastefully attired. No one, however, saw him as, taking one sharp look round, he sped like a lapwing with bent head through the thick tall furze-bushes covering the waste ground to the edges of the thicket beyond. At the other side of the thicket ran the bright stream whose course he intended to follow, as he knew that some miles ahead it joined the river Thames.
There, at the bottom of the broad steep-sloping bank he soon reached, lay a largish boat tied by a rope to the stem of an elm-tree. Charles’s heart leapt within him: that was just the thing he wanted. Surely some kind woodland fairy must have placed it there, as fairies do in story-books, for his convenience. The next minute his delight faded out: another glance showed that the craft was loaded rather heavily for its size with some wicker-baskets and a small cask and a sack which peeped out from beneath a big canvas covering, and of course to get in and row off, with all that cargo aboard, would make him like a thief, so the plan was impossible. While he was cogitating on this most difficult question he heard voices, and voices that he knew well, too. No less than those of Lady Chauncy and Wynkin, who seemed to be coming through the trees. Charles turned all gooseflesh with dismay. To make a run for it would, likely as not, land him right into her ladyship’s stiff brocade skirts. There was not a minute to think, and so he ran the other way down the bank faster than a rabbit, and hey presto! with one leap he was at the bottom of the boat, and, creeping under the canvas among the sacks.
Feeling as if his heart was really in his mouth, he listened to what the lady and her serving-man were saying, and her ladyship, who spoke first, seemed in one of her pleasantest humors.
“And so you are off, Wynkin,” said she; “well, the sooner the better perchance, for I believe there will be a storm before morning, and you have a long way to go, and your good father and mother are, I doubt not, wearying to give you a welcome. You must tell them that when his Highness hath been delivered safe back to his Majesty out of our charge, you will tarry with them a longer time. But now I shall look for you at midday to-morrow. Meantime I shall wait upon the Prince entirely myself, since my husband desires it. And so a good journey to you, and make my remembrances to your parents, and I trust they will have good enjoyment of the gallimaufries and the what-nots I beg their acceptance of, and that your mother will find the red cloak warm and a good fit. Is all well and securely packed in the boat, Wynkin?”
“Yes, madam,” replied Wynkin, making a low bow to his mistress, though, of course, Charles was only able to imagine that. “I have placed the cloak and the fresh butter, and the new-laid eggs, and the manchets, all in their baskets between the sacks,” and, stepping into the punt, he loosed the rope from the tree, struck out into midstream, and away glided the punt to the music of the river ripples.
“And so you are off, Wynkin; well, the sooner the better perchance, for I believe there will be a storm before morning.”
If Wynkin had only known what he was carrying away from the Manor House along with his sacks and what-nots, as my lady called them, he might have whistled other sort of tunes than the jolly ones he indulged in as he punted on, on, till twilight darkened into night, and Charles, cooped up between the sacks, could no longer discern hedges from banks through the peephole he could keep open for himself only with difficulty.
All of a sudden, just as he heard the distant church clocks striking eight, a brilliant flash of lightning covered all he could see, followed by a crash of thunder, and then down upon the canvas covering pattered rain-drops as heavily as if they were crown pieces. For a short time the hurly-burly was so terrific that he almost, if not quite, wished himself back in the Cedar Room.
Just as the hurricane began to calm a little, Wynkin punted towards the bank, which was now fringed by a row of pollard willows, and he shouted to a man who was standing under them, “Is it you, Dickon lad?”